[Tutor] bubble sort function

[Dave Angel]

Spyros Charonis <s.charonis at gmail.com> Wrote in message:
> 
> Dear group,
> I'm having a bit of trouble with understanding why my bubble sort implementation doesn't work. I've got the following function to perform a bubble sort operation on a list of numbers:
> def bubble_sort_ascending(unsorted):
>       """ Sorts a list of numbers into ascending order """
>        iterations = 0 
>        size = len(unsorted) - int(1)
>        for i in range(0, size):
>             unsorted[i] = float(unsorted[i])

Why are you converting some of your values to float? You should
 either convert them all before you start, or not bother at
 all.

>             while unsorted[i] > unsorted[i+1]:

How do you think this while statement will ever run more than
 once? Think about what do yoy hope this loop will do and change
 it so that it will accomplish that. Hint, you'll need a second
 index variable. 


>                   # Use a tuple assignment in order to swap the value of two variables
>                   unsorted[i], unsorted[i+1] = unsorted[i+1], unsorted[i]
>                   iterations += 1 
>                   sorted_vec = unsorted[:] # copy unsorted which is now sorted  

I can't see how this accomplishes anything.  Certainly if you do
 want to copy the whole list,  you should either do it before you
 start, or when you finish. 
   
>                   print "\nIterations completed: %s\n" %(iterations)    
>        return sorted_vec

Standard python  practice is to either modify the original list,
 or to return a new list, modified from the original.  You're
 trying to do both.

> Example: mylist = [4, 1, 7, 19, 13, 22, 17, 14, 23, 21]
> 
> When I call it as such bubble_sort_ascending(mylist), it returns the list only partially sorted with 5 iterations reported, i.e.  
> [1, 4.0, 7.0, 13, 19.0, 17, 14, 22.0, 21, 23.0] 
> and I have to call it again

You're likely it needed only two passes. It could have taken about 9.

> for the the sorting operation to complete. Is there something I am missing in my code? Why does it not sort the entire list
 

A sort of this type needs at least two nested loops. You only have one.

>  at once and just count all completed iterations? 

You are not counting iterations,  just exchanges.


-- 
DaveA